"Wainscot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He thought she was pretty, and sleek, and all that; And she purred in the softest tone, He wished to make her his own. This man by prayers, by tears, By sorcery and charms, Changed pussy to a woman fair, And took her in his arms. But in the wainscot soon a rat Made itself manifest, And very soon the pussy cat, Could still no longer rest. Her foolish husband who believed That nothing had of cat remained, And as his wife had her received— Was, now, I warrant, somewhat pained. Next time the vermin came, Pussy was surer of her game— ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity—a trait of good sense in the character ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... dreamy house The doors upon their hinges creak'd, The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peer'd about, Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... her sitting-room, and she began to descend the private stairs that led down to it. She was as light in figure and in step as ever, and her soft slippers made no noise as she went down. The door in the wainscot was open, and from the foot of the stairs she had a strange view. Janet's candle was on the chair behind her, in front of it lay half-a-dozen different keys, and she herself was kneeling before the bureau, trying one of the keys into the lock. It would not fit, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to Marseilles, and being lodged in the same apartment, the same spectre appeared to him again. Neure wrote to Gassendi that they had observed that this spectre penetrated into the chamber by the wainscot; which obliged Gassendi to write to the count to examine the thing more attentively; and notwithstanding this discovery, he dare not yet decide upon it. He contents himself with encouraging the count, and telling him that if this apparition is from God, he will not ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... massive doorway one enters a hall of baronial character, thirty-three feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-one feet high, finished in oak with open beam ceiling and above the high wainscot a rough wall in ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... remaining. "It consisted," says he, "of a plank of stone of about six inches in thickness, and in its other dimensions equalling the size of an ordinary door, or somewhat less. It was carved in such a manner as to resemble a piece of wainscot: the stone of which it was made was visibly of the same kind with the whole rock; and it turned upon two hinges in the nature of axles. These hinges were of the same entire piece of stone with the door, and were contained in two holes of the immoveable ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... intervals, I heard a scratching sound—just such a sound as a mouse makes behind the wainscot. I had not noticed it before, and it caused me nothing but irritation now, for when a man is wakeful, such sounds, however slight they may be, become magnified to his overstrung nerves. I endured the sound ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... silence seemed more absolute than ordinarily he turned round. The heavy, gloomy oak wainscot, which extended over the walls upstairs and down in the dilapidated "Old-Grove Place," and the massive chimney-piece reaching to the ceiling, stood in odd contrast to the new and shining brass bedstead, and the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a house more remote, where I remained until 4 o'clock, by which time one of the best finished houses in the Province had nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. Not contented with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls; and although that alone cost them near two hours, they cut down the cupola or lanthorn, and they began to take the slate and boards ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of running round a room on the edge of the wainscot, a strange power of holding by the foot: an art which, in lower life, might have been serviceable to him in the showing it. And Anthony, likewise, amongst better and more brilliant qualifications, had the reputation of being amongst the best dancers of the age. In a political line, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... indolent man; but whom, unless he has been slandered, his lady's influence involved in some political matters which had been more wisely let alone. She was a woman of high principle, however, and masculine good sense, as some of her letters testify, which are still in my wainscot cabinet. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... open fire, but a little iron stove that got so red that it trembled, and at intervals could hardly contain the puttering of the pine; and there was a one-armed soldier, who spent the long forenoons cutting carefully and piling, until there was a rustic wainscot half around the room, the drying breath of which was the purest fragrance in the world.... They petted the soldier until an officer ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... primitive, the landlord had devoted all his powers of taste and judgment upon this upper chamber. Leaning complacently against the door, he received our congratulations on the pretty ceiling and walls of carved deal wainscot, on the grand new bed, and the bouquet of fresh Edelweiss in a wash-basin, but showed surprise that the fiery tigers and gliding serpents which in a couple of gilt frames adorned the walls received no flattering ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... was the scurrying of the rats as they ran, disturbed by the noise, across the room and behind the wainscot in the darkness. ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... great bore. No person will be admitted into my sanctum, and I can have the door locked during my absence. 3dly, I expect Mr. Bullock here every day, and should be glad to have the drawings for the dining-room wainscot, as he could explain them to the artists who are to work them. This (always if quite convenient) would be the more desirable, as I must leave this place in a fortnight at farthest,—the more 's the pity,—and, consequently, the risk of blunders will be ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... lamps and candles burned longer in the castle itself, where the Earl had been giving a banquet to his guests, of the best that his estates could afford. Nevertheless, it was yet long before midnight when the cheep of the mouse in the wainscot, the restless stir or muffled snore of a crowded sleeper in the guardroom, was the only sound to be heard from dungeon to banner-staff of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... only used with reference to the top of a room—the ceiling. It is an old English word, and means overlaid or lined with wood, wainscot, or plank, either roof, sides, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... partly modernized by the late Mme. Sechard; the walls were adorned with a wainscot, fearful to behold, painted the color of powder blue. The panels were decorated with wall-paper —Oriental scenes in sepia tint—and for all furniture, half-a-dozen chairs with lyre-shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged round the room. The two clumsy arched windows that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... random flight, to get entangled in the glutinous meshes, he shakes and roars, and blusters so loudly, until he breaks away, that the spider affrighted, invariably takes advantage of his long legs to scamper off to his sanctum in the cracked wainscot—like some imbecile watchman, who fearing to encounter a tall inebriated bruiser, sneaks away with admirable discretion to the security of his snug box, praying the drunkard may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... aside! further back! disregard me! Look! that last arrow sticks half its head deep in the wainscot. It shook so violently I did not see the feather ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... still as the mice in the old wainscot when they smelt Miss Latournelle's cat, whilst the ladies were in the parlour, for our teachers insisted on our being quiet; but as soon as we saw the coach bowling away, we all began to chatter, and to speak our thoughts concerning the occasion ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty, dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted in the air like the elbow of the late ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... only just reach the high knocker, she was not likely to alarm anybody with the noise she made. After a great many little faint raps, which, if anybody heard them, might easily have been mistaken for the attacks of some rat's teeth upon the wainscot, Ellen grew weary of her fruitless toil, and of standing on tiptoe, and resolved, though doubtfully, to go round the house and see if there was any other way of getting in. Turning the far corner, she saw ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... girl's arm, and we made as if to fetch a couple of chairs that stood against the wainscot by the door. As we did so, Sir Deakin push'd the punch bowl forward under ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,—so it was. And thenceforward the nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he concern'd himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... them sore lest Master Ciappelletto should play them false, had posted themselves behind a wainscot, that divided the chamber where he lay from another, and listening, easily heard and apprehended that which he said to the friar and had whiles so great a mind to laugh, hearing the things which he confessed to having done, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... mocked it, the vague presentiment appeared to take form in his mind; and sitting, the only person awake in the slumbering house, where no sound broke the stillness, except the falling of a few cinders, and the occasional noise of a mouse behind the wainscot, somewhat of the superstitions of his northern youth came over him. His countenance became grave, and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... that you are come in, Mr Henry," said the cross old woman, "what for do you no tak up your candle and gang to your bed? and mind ye dinna let the candle sweal as ye gang alang the wainscot parlour, and haud a' the house scouring to get ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... drew nearer to him, and began to pull him by the sleeve. Frederick, angry, and out of patience with these interruptions, suddenly turned round, and gave Marcus such a push, that he sent him reeling across the room, and he at last fell against the wainscot. ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... if you like. His wife had to share his fortunes. He being slighted, she necessarily was shadowed. For a while she bore it contentedly enough; then began her mousy scratches to get into the room off the wainscot, without blame from him; she behaved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be more elegant; though that is to be rather plain than rich, as well in its wainscot as furniture, and to be new-floored. The dear gentleman has already given orders, and you will soon have workmen to put them in execution. The parlour-doors are to have brass-hinges and locks, and to shut as close, he tells them, as a watch-case: "For who knows," said he, "my dear, but we shall ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... blows nor commands could move them for two hours? Had he not set farmer Raught's pigs to walking on their hind legs and trying to talk? When he shouted "Hup! hup! hup!" to farmer Williams's children, had they not leaped to the moulding of the parlor wainscot,—a yard above the floor and only an inch wide,—and walked around it, afterward skipping like birds from chair-back to chair-back, while the furniture stood as if nailed to the floor? And was he not the chief of thirteen night-riders, ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a step to obey, and kicked against something which rattled as it flew forward, and struck the wainscot board, while the next moment a dim, blue spark of light in a ground-glass burst into a flame, and lit up a dingy-looking, old-fashioned surgery just as the kneeling girl uttered a ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... time will come." Again the silence was broken, this time by a strange hurrying, rustling sound behind the wainscot, followed by a ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her. "I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the ribs—nothing but ribs and darkness—I should think ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... wrest-pins, which are inserted in the wooden bed, called the wrest-plank, the strength and efficiency of which are most important for the tone and durability of the instrument. It is composed of layers of wainscot oak and beech, the direction of the grain being alternately longitudinal and lateral. Some makers cover the wrest-plank with a plate of brass; in Broadwood's grands, it is a plate of iron, into which, as well as the wood, the wrest-pins are screwed. The tuner's business is to regulate the tension, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... intended for him. A bed draped with a mosquito-netting under a linen canopy, a large bureau of mahogany wood, and a table, was the furnishing of this room, which opened upon the garden. Its only ornament was a crucifix suspended from the center of the slightly roughened wainscot. ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... drinking cups, occasional laughter, and other noises. I dreamed, I know not what absurdities; suddenly a solemn swelling chorus of countless voices gently interrupted my slumbers—the room was filled with light, and the sun on high was beginning to begild an irregular parallelogram in the wainscot, when I started up, and hastily drew on some clothes. Going out to the makaa, I perceived yesterday's assembly of merry-making peasants quadrupled in number, and all dressed in their holiday costume, thickset ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... in a body, with wild shouts and fierce mockery, and he hurriedly fell on guard and gave way before them until his shoulders were against the wainscot and he had at least the assurance that none could take him in the rear. Three blades engaged his own. Fortunio had come no farther than the doorway, where he stood his torn cheek drenched in blood, watching the scene the Marquise beside him, ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Church. The room is very fine in its proportions and decoration, and hung with the portraits of the multitude of brilliant men who in their young days were Christ Church men. During all the centuries that the rich dark stain has been gathering upon the carved oak in the ceiling and wainscot, it has been the scene of banquets and pageants without number, at which the most illustrious characters of English history have figured. I doubt, however, if any of its associations are finer than those connected with the student plays that ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... are mistaken—'twas but the wind in the old wainscot. (Aside.) He is quite capable of destroying that innocent child; but, old and attached servant as he is, there are liberties I still know how to forbid. (To M.) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... amusement, hide-and-seek. They never tired of rushing about through the old passages and rooms, and often came upon strange discoveries. Things hidden away for years and forgotten, doors which had remained unopened, or perhaps even had been mistaken for a part of the wainscot for generations. These discoveries were somewhat awe-inspiring, and the game not unfrequently became what the children called 'Treasure-hunting.' They generally managed to keep together on such occasions; it was too uncanny to be alone ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears through the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be coming back, and there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by stopping awake, he goes ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... of words about nothing at all, ... this—but I am like Mariana in the moated grange and sit listening too often to the mouse in the wainscot. Be as forbearing as you can—and believe how profoundly it touches me that you should care to come here at all, much more, so often! and try to understand that if I did not write as you half asked, it was just because I failed at the moment to get up enough pomp and ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... to the lowest humiliation. However, I carried up the pail, slopping the water on the stairs at every step, with a scrubbing-brush in the other hand, and then I set to work. When once I had begun, I cannot pretend that I found the actual washing of the wainscot particularly distasteful, although it seemed rather hard, after I had done my best, that Mrs. Turton should upbraid me for soiling ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... celebrated lawyers of the last century; and there were old pier-glasses to reflect them, as well as the little satin-wood tables and the sofas resembling a prolongation of uneasy chairs, all standing in relief against the dark wainscot This was the physiognomy of the drawing-room into which Lydgate was shown; and there were three ladies to receive him, who were also old-fashioned, and of a faded but genuine respectability: Mrs. Farebrother, the Vicar's white-haired mother, befrilled and kerchiefed ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... brilliant illustration of the saying that there is no fool like an old fool," she said to herself as the night wore on, and the strange sensation of pain and loss which Preston Cheney's unexpected announcement had caused her gnawed at her breast like a rat in a wainscot. ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... in wall spaces, so as to be accessible. The rooms are ventilated through the hollow columns of the kiosks, and each is provided with an electric fan. They are heated by electric heaters. The woodwork of the rooms is oak; the walls are red slate wainscot ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... use our liberty, we all set forward in search of some food, or rather some adventure, as our mother had left us victuals more than sufficient to supply the wants of that day. With a great deal of difficulty, we clambered up a high wall on the inside of a wainscot, till we reached the story above that we were born in, where we found it much easier to run round within the skirting-board, than to ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... of the company. It consisted of a parlour (36 ft. by 14 ft.), with three chambers over it. The east side with fan glasses overlooked the garden, 72 ft. in length by 21 ft. wide. The west side was lined with wainscot. The actual hall adjoined, a fine room 30 ft. by 25 ft., with a gallery at the nether end, with a little parlour at the west end. A room for the Bedell, a kitchen with a vault under it, larder-rooms, buttery, and a little house ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... lips, and a rush of blood flowing under her skin made her red from the roots of her hair to the top of her collar. She remained standing, leaning with her shoulder against the wainscot. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... about sixteen inches square, and a quarter of an inch thick: wainscot is the best, as it does not warp. These will go into the groove of the lesson post: there should be about twenty articles on each board, or twenty-five, just as it suits the conductors of the school; there should be the same quantity ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... decorated with rude paintings and horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved in the Arabic style with enamelled faience laid out in various mosaic designs, and provided with a fountain or marble conch; the pretty church, unfortunately without an organ, but with wainscot, confessionals, and doors of most excellent workmanship, a floor of finely-painted faience, and a remarkable statue in painted wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the centre of the cloister, symmetrically planted with box-trees, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... confusion in his personal pronouns, Capua mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, thrust his pocket-knife through a crack of the wainscot, opened the door of a small unseen closet, and, after groping about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in the lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full of charred and blackened papers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... nor woman, elderly nor young; the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that, in frost and snow, pecks at the window for a crumb. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it loves to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... in a spacious and low room, with an outlook on the court, that I found them bestowed. In the good days of that house the apartment had probably served as a library, for there were traces of shelves along the wainscot. Four or five mattresses lay on the floor in the corner, with a frowsy heap of bedding; near by was a basin and a cube of soap; a rude kitchen-table and some deal chairs stood together at the far end; and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... factories, and both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. They have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up in the maddest manner and see how high they can kick the wall! The wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with their pencil-marks. To see them doing this—Dolby, a big man, and Osgood, a very little ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... sound—so small that it might have been no more than that caused by the scratch of the tiniest mouse in the wainscot. But in that intense silence it was easily heard—and with it came the faint glimmering of a light. The light widened—there was a little further sound—and Mallalieu, peeping at things through his eyelashes became aware that the door was open, that a tall, spare figure ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... that are to be mourners in this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal—(forming their countenances)—this fellow has a good mortal look—place him near the corpse; that wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall—so—but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the pupils were distended to twice their natural size. She sat upon a stool in a corner, a slight girlish figure in a holland skirt and white cambric blouse-bodice, her slender waist girdled with a belt of brown leather, the colour of her little shoes. Huddled up against the corrugated-iron wainscot of the rough earth wall, the obsession of fear that dilated her eyes and parched her lips shook her in recurrent gusts of trembling, whenever the guns of the Gueldersdorp batteries spoke in thunder, whenever the Boer artillery bellowed Death from the heights above. For since the great gun had spoken ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... own eyes would grow large with something which was almost like fear, particularly at night, when the garret was so still, when the only sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak and scurry of rats in the wainscot. There were rat-holes in the garret, and Sara detested rats, and was always glad Emily was with her when she heard their hateful squeak and rush and scratching. One of her "pretends" was that Emily was a kind of good witch and could protect her. ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sentient, the rest of the woman dead. The impression was so vivid even yet—though Iglesias knew it to be subjective only, projected by the vividness of remembrance—that instinctively he crossed the room, laid his left hand upon the moulding of the high wainscot, leaned over the vacant space which appeared to hold her image, and spoke gently to her, so that the moving hands might find rest for a moment, while she recognised and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... it would be no easy matter to teach them to Kate," said Lady Humbert with a smile. "She has all the spirit of Wyvern and Trevlyn combined. She will be a stanch protector for thee, Dowsabel, if thou art troubled by strange noises in the wainscot, or by the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... me quite; A noisy man is always in the right— I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; And when I hope his blunders all are out, Reply discreetly, 'To ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Fanny come, with the same view, To find her false, or find her true. Hark! something creeps about the house! Is it a spirit, or a mouse? Hark! something scratches round the room! A cat, a rat, a stubb'd birch-broom. Hark! on the wainscot now it knocks! 'If thou 'rt a ghost,' cried Orthodox, With that affected solemn air Which hypocrites delight to wear, 310 And all those forms of consequence Which fools adopt instead of sense; 'If thou 'rt a ghost, who from the tomb Stalk'st sadly silent through this ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands—she submitted, rather than consented to the ceremony; but there her compliance ended; and, when forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle taps on the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard Cromlus's voice, crying, 'Helen, Helen, mind me!' Cromlus soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was discovered,—her marriage disannulled,—and Helen became ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... wealth of the present inhabitants of the castle. The mouldering tapestry, which, in his father's time, had half covered the walls of this stately apartment, and half streamed from them in tatters, had given place to a complete finishing of wainscot, the cornice of which, as well as the frames of the various compartments, were ornamented with festoons of flowers and with birds, which, though carved in oak, seemed, such was the art of the chisel, actually to swell their throats and flutter their wings. Several old family portraits of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... by Sir Richard Whittington, 21 October, 1421, and by Christmas Day in the following year the roof was finished. Stow tells us that it was 129 feet long by 31 feet broad; and the Letters Patent of Henry the Eighth add that it had 28 desks, and 28 double settles of wainscot. The whole building—so well worth preservation—has been totally destroyed, but I am able to shew you a view ...
— Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - The Rede Lecture Delivered June 13, 1894 • J. W. Clark
... thoughts than such a suggestion. And he snorted his disdain. The sergeant had fallen back at Feversham's words, and his men lined the wall of the chamber. The General bade Richard be seated whilst he waited. Sir Rowland stood apart, leaning wearily against the wainscot, waiting also, his dull wits not quite clear how Richard might have come by so valuable a piece of information, his evil spirit almost wishing it untrue, in his vindictiveness, to the end that Richard might ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a lady," ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... particular, I learned by the sequel of the story, when the spark, proud of his acquisition, came to me, that he had been peeping about in the cabin whilst his mother was packing the chests, and seeing a small brass knob in the wainscot, took it for a plaything, and pulling to get it out, opened a little door of a cupboard, where he had found some very pretty toys that he positively claimed for himself, among which were a small plain gold ring, and a very fine one set with diamonds, which he showed me upon two of his ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... while I lay dreaming in my cosy box bed, I was awakened by hearing a rapping noise. I listened, fancying it was but the noise of some rat behind the wainscot that had come for shelter into the warm house; but the loud knocking came again. I hurriedly drew on some clothes and opened the outer door. A wild gust of wind and snow swished in upon me, and in the deep snow outside there stood a woman holding ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... ha! These forms are air—mere counterfeits Of my imaginous heart, as are the whirling Wainscot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... by a correspondent of one of the English newspapers: "This morning," says he, "while reading in bed, I was suddenly interrupted by a noise similar to that made by rats, when running through a double wainscot, and endeavoring to pierce it. The noise ceased for some moments, and then commenced again. I was only two or three feet from the wall whence the noise proceeded; and soon I perceived a great rat making his appearance at a hole. It looked about ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... 24th of November 1244 Henry issued a writ enjoining "the clerks of the works at Windsor to work day and night to wainscot the high chamber upon the wall of the castle near our chapel in the upper bailey, so that it may be ready and properly wainscoted on Friday next [the 24th occurring on a Tuesday, only two days were allowed for ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then There is no sound at the top of the house of men Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again Dapples the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... perpetuate The tuneful Strains and witty Flights, Of him that Studies while he sh - - ts) Decree all Landlords, thro' the Nation, Shall lay (on Pain of Flagellation) In some meet Corner of their Dark Hole A cuspidated Piece of Charcoal; Or, where the Walls are cas'd with Wainscot, A Piece of Chalk with equal Pains cut; That those who labour at both Ends, To ease themselves, and serve their Friends, May not, reluctant, go from Sh - - t, And leave no Relict of their Wit, For want of necessary ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... look'd, and swore The rascal had mistook the door: At coming in, you saw her stoop; The entry brush'd against her hoop: Each moment rising in her airs, She curst the narrow winding stairs: Began a thousand faults to spy; The ceiling hardly six feet high; The smutty wainscot full of cracks: And half the chairs with broken backs: Her quarter's out at Lady-day; She vows she will no longer stay In lodgings like a poor Grisette, While there are houses to be let. Howe'er, to keep her spirits up, She sent for company to sup: When all the while you ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... out the light, and yet its faint glimmer only made the darkness more horrible. He did not dare to look behind him, though he knew that there was nothing there. He trembled at the scratching sound in the wainscot, though he knew that it was only mice. A sudden light on the window, and a distant chorus, did not make his heart beat less wildly from being nothing more alarming than two or three noisy students going home with ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... putting his fingers on his lips, as if enjoining silence. There was now no time to be lost in rousing the family, and all the haste that could be made was scarcely sufficient to hurry the venerable man from his bed, into a small recess behind the wainscot of an adjoining room, which was concealed by a bed, in which a lady, Miss Gordon of Towie, who was there on a visit, lay, before the soldiers obtained admission. A most minute search took place. The room in which Lord Pitsligo was concealed did not escape: Miss Gordon's ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... on the west side of this part of the triforium was discovered in 1718, against the then eastern end of the nave, underneath the panelled wainscot at the back of the seats occupied by the clergy when the nave was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... the chateau, and over them still hung long sweeping curtains, so tattered and moth-eaten that they were almost falling to pieces. Profound silence reigned here, unbroken save by occasional scurrying and squeaking of mice behind the wainscot, the gnawing of rats in the wall, or the ticking of ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... in height, and the heavy, whitewashed beams made it look still lower. In the narrow space between the ceiling and wainscot, the wall was covered with an old-fashioned paper, florid of design, and musty of odor. On the mantel-shelf stood two brass candle-sticks with snuffer and extinguisher. As Flint stared idly at them, wondering what varied scenes their candles had shone upon, his eyes were drawn above them ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... the "Little People," even if you do not give it to him, he will very probably get for himself; they will lurk always just out of reach of his desiring curious eyes, amidst the grass and flowers and behind the wainscot and in the shadows of the bedroom. He will come upon their traces; they will do him little kindnesses. Their affairs should interweave with the affairs of the child's dolls and brick castles and toy furniture. At first the child will scarcely be in a world of sustained ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... was glazed, and looked very well, perfectly white, and painted with blue figures, as the large China ware in England is painted, and hard as if it had been burnt. As to the inside, all the walls, instead of wainscot, were lined with hardened and painted tiles, like the little square tiles we call galley- tiles in England, all made of the finest china, and the figures exceeding fine indeed, with extraordinary variety of colours, mixed with gold, many tiles making but one figure, but joined so artificially, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... what soothsayers I would consult?" . . . "The little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in my wainscot; the bird in frost and snow that pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my knee. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it likes to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... kind of camorra. Get a shyster; fight the devil with fire. What can a gentleman do in a justice's court? If the rats are behind the wainscot, don't stick your own hand into the ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... three years old, did not immediately obey him. He suddenly started up; and with eyes and face flaming with rage, he caught hold of her and dashed her poor little head, with all the strength he possessed, against the wainscot. His father, who was writing, had scarcely observed what was going on, till Helen's screams drew his attention. What a sight met his eyes, when he looked towards where his children stood! Helen lying on the carpet, her head streaming with blood, and William standing ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... room, pausing at the stiff, distinguished, grey-haired couple, one on either side of the fire. The effect was of a highly finished genre picture: the rich wainscot between low book-shelves, the brooding portraits, the black-blue rug bordered by a veiled Oriental motive, the black-velvet cushions that brought out the watery reflections of old Sheraton as even the ancient horsehair had not ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour of lonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which misty shapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinous chambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry of which swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through which unearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-opened doors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night the muffled sound of shrieks and ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... fancies, especially as the sounds were beginning; but though we generally yielded to him we COULD not give our attention to anything but these. There was first a low moan. 'No great harm in that,' said Griff; 'it comes through that crack in the wainscot where there is a sham window. Some putty will put a stop ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... smaller hall a simple, though only a molded cornice in harmony with that of the main hall suffices. Unlike the plain dado of the main hall, however, elaborated only by a molded surbase and skirting, a handsome paneled wainscot runs around the staircase hall and up the stairs. The spacing and workmanship displayed in this heavily beveled and molded paneling could hardly be better. At the foot of the flight, on the landing and at the head ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... chambers of the tower is the following sentence, carved on the frieze of the wainscot:—"In the yeire of owre Ld. MDLV. was this howse buyldyd, by Sir Wyllyam Ingilby, Knight, Philip and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... his genealogy, which, emblazoned with many an emblematic mark of honour and heroic achievement, hung upon the well-varnished wainscot of his hall. The nearest descendants of Sir Hildebrand Waverley, failing those of his eldest son Wilfred, of whom Sir Everard and his brother were the only representatives, were, as this honoured register informed him (and, indeed, as he himself well knew), the Waverleys ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... pitch dark in the village street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for a light here and there in an uncurtained window or from an open door. Into one such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a charming genre picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had sufficiently admired the antiquity of the structure and the beauty of the situation, the Prince, having proceeded down a long corridor, opened the door into a small chamber, which he introduced to Vivian as his cabinet. The furniture of this room was rather quaint, and not unpleasing. The wainscot and ceiling were painted alike, of a light green colour, and were richly carved and gilt. The walls were hung with green velvet, of which material were also the chairs, and a sofa, which was placed under a large ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... her, from the wainscot old, Ancestral faces frown,— And this has worn the soldier's sword, And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... overheard by the other lady, with an ejaculation of "O heavens! I'm undone," suffered him, after a faint struggle, to make a lodgment upon the covered way of her bed. Her honour, however, was secured for the present, by a strange sort of knocking upon the wainscot, at the other end of the room, hard by the bed in which the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common free-stone and fire irons which had cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best-apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with rushbottomed chairs. Readers ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the moment, or as soon as he recovered his presence of mind, was to set down his bottle and dive under the counter; while Nicky-Nan chased the coin which had ricochetted off the spittoon and lodged against the wainscot. Their physical infirmities made the pursuit painful for both, as the darkness in a small room overcrowded with furniture made it difficult. Mr Latter emerged panting, in audible bodily distress. His search had been longer than Nicky-Nan's, but it was successful. He ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... heard," continued Conrad, "or read of those wonderful persons, or, as you have been such a great traveller, have you yourself never stumbled upon such, whose eyes can pierce through a board, through wainscot and wall, nay down into the depths of the earth and into the heart ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... this to astound her so?" I asked myself. "Is she not merely acting a part? And even if the Mauprats are not hidden behind some wainscot listening to us, is she not sure to give them an account of everything that takes place? And yet she is trembling like an aspen leaf. But what if she is acting? I once saw an actress play Genevieve de Brabant, and she wept so that one ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... gunpowder, Chris noticed that Zachary remained on deck after the others had gone to bed, and continued to sit with his back to a stanchion dreamily gazing at the starry sky. Chris was in a fever for Amos to sleep, which his good friend soon did. Then a gray mouse scuttered along the wainscot of the ship's passageways until it reached a good vantage point from which to see the young sailor on deck. Chris had chosen well; a mouse is used ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... conscious of a dramatic pause in the conversation which had broken out between the others. Once again had Mrs. Curtis been rendered dumb by the shock of an unforeseen development. Devar, who was having the night of his life, leaned back against the wainscot, Uncle Horace peered hopelessly into an empty tumbler, but dared not suggest a second highball, while Curtis, after one sharp glance at the detective, whom he credited with having arranged this surprise ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... In the wainscot ticks the death-watch, Chirps the cricket in the floor, In the distance dogs are barking, Feet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... that they went to bed rather too early at my friend's. I had no wish to sleep; I therefore examined my room, which was charming. It was completely hung with an old figured tapestry framed in gray wainscot. The bed, draped in dimity curtains, was turned down and exhaled that odor of freshly washed linen which invites one to stretch one's self in it. On the table, a little gem dating from the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI, were four or five books, evidently ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... late Years there has been a certain Person in the upper Gallery of the Playhouse, who when he is pleased with any Thing that is acted upon the Stage, expresses his Approbation by a loud Knock upon the Benches or the Wainscot, which may be heard over the whole Theatre. This Person is commonly known by the Name of the Trunk-maker in the upper Gallery. Whether it be, that the Blow he gives on these Occasions resembles that which ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the kitchen-apron, picked it up and held it a moment irresolutely. Then opening a door in the wainscot near the fireplace he flung it in. Before the door went to, Elsie had a glimpse of worse disorder—of the sort that is supposed to pertain ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... her particular pleasure in seeing Me, and kept advancing to me near, that involuntarily I retreated from her, not knowing er design, and kept, therefore, getting further and further back as she came forward, till I was stopped from any power of moving by the wainscot. I then necessarily stood still, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... placed over an arched cloister, and an ominous-looking region, in which, I suspect, is the magazine of birch. The school is nothing more than an extensive room, with its floor lined with fixed forms, and the wainscot with sculptured names innumerable. One is guilty of a sad omission should he quit Eton without giving a crown to Cartland to perpetuate his name on the immortal oak. Perhaps the loss of few olden records would be more deplored than its destruction, for here ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... wall papers. Leather (used with paneling or above wainscot), modern tapestries, fabrics of all kinds are suitable for covering dining-room walls. If low, the ceiling should never be dark, since this makes the room appear still lower. (A breakfast room done in lacquer is very effective, however, if not too low.) A single large rug, harmonizing ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... here, quick!" he said just as Grace opened the table cloth with a jerk and flung it over his head. A pistol shot rang out, but David had dodged in time and the bullet was buried in the mahogany wainscot back of him. The astonished burglar dropped the weapon, and began to struggle violently to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... checked by observing the reeve of the forest peeping from behind the wainscot, and earnestly regarding the miller, and he called the attention of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... worn-out, fretting charge in through the great draughty porch, and was led up the old shallow oak stairs to a big panelled room, clean and scantily furnished, where the rats ran about behind the wainscot, and a rain-laden branch of monthly rose went tap, tap against the window, and a dog howled all night long, I thought we had come to a miserable place at the end of the earth. I thought so still the next morning, when the mist lay ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... presented the picture of one calmly asleep. Then, as they continued to gaze at her with fascinated eyes, not knowing what to expect, they saw something white escape from her lap and slide across the floor till it touched and was stayed by the wainscot. It was the top page of the manuscript she held, and as some inkling of the truth reached their astonished minds, she sprang impetuously to her feet and, pointing to the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... to admiring visitors, had remembered the phrase, though her pronunciation of it, according to the standard of the Sorbonne, left something to be desired. The table and chairs, of heavy, shiny oak marvellously and precisely carved by machines, matched the big panels of the wainscot. The windows were high in the wall, thus preventing any intrusion from the clothes-yard on which they looked. The bookcases, protected by leaded panes, held countless volumes of the fiction from which Cora Ditmar had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... white stockings, square-toed black shoes. She stands, her left foot advanced, holding in her left hand a grey felt hat adorned with a long plume reaching nearly to the ground. The wall behind her is grey with a black wainscot. On the left, far back in the picture, on a low stool, some grey-green drapery strikes the highest note of colour in the picture. On the right, in the foreground, some tall daisies come into the picture, and two butterflies flutter over the girl's ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... looked awkwardly thrust into the corner. Tintoret has made these spaces as large as possible by filling them with landscapes, which are rendered interesting by the introduction of single figures of very small size. He has not, however, considered his task, of making a small piece of wainscot look like a large one, worth the stretch of his powers, and has painted these two landscapes just as carelessly and as fast as an upholsterer's journeyman finishing a room at a railroad hotel. The color is for the most part opaque, and dashed ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... itself in a religious way: he insisted upon people kneeling down along with him in the street and praying. During his confinement, writing materials were denied him, and he used to write his poetical pieces with a key on the wainscot. Thus, 'scrabbling,' like his own hero, on the wall, he produced his immortal 'Song to David.' He became by and by sane; but, returning to his old habits, got into debt, and died in the King's Bench prison, after ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the taper's glare, checked the motion of their hundred legs upon the wall, or dropped like lifeless things upon the ground; the death-watch ticked; and the scampering feet of rats and mice rattled behind the wainscot. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... round the old wainscot walls with unusual interest; she thought it would be a fine thing to be ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which in rising Crispin had overset, and he stumbled. How it happened he scarcely knew, but as he hurtled forward his blade slid along his opponent's, and entering Gregory's right shoulder pinned him to the wainscot. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Hah—now cannot I refrain joining with her in affectionate Tears.—No, but do not weep for me, my excellent Lady, for I have made a pretty competent Estate for thee. Eight thousand Pounds, which I have conceal'd in my Study behind the Wainscot on the left hand as ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... and extended. He looked to be just out and about again after a ruinous debauch. He talked in hollow whispers, he trembled in the limbs, he started and turned pale at a shadow, or the sound of a mouse in the wainscot. He said he had been to Ancona, Gubbio, Rimini, Ravenna, Chioggia, Venice, Udine, Trieste. He demanded money—fifty guineas; but this time I gave him nothing. I was preparing to go to Florence, and had other agents than him in view. I dismissed him from my service, and told him to go to the ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... speaks softly to those only who sit next him. The greater part read the newspapers, and no one ever disturbs another. The room is commonly on the ground floor, and you enter it immediately from the street; the seats are divided by wooden wainscot partitions. Many letters and projects are here written and planned, and many of those that you find in the papers are dated from some of these coffee-houses. There is, therefore, nothing incredible, nor very extraordinary, in a person's composing a sermon ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... up to the end, and making a seat for one, or by sitting close, for two, at the table and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat to another boy, so that three could sit and work together. The walls were wainscoted half-way up, the wainscot being covered with green baize, the remainder with a bright-patterned paper, on which hung three or four prints of dogs' heads; Grimaldi winning the Aylesbury steeple-chase; Amy Robsart, the reigning Waverley beauty ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... large Hall, called the Frater-house, finely wainscotted on the North and South sides; and in the West and nether Part thereof, is a long Bench of Stone in Mason-work, from the Cellar Door to the Pantry or Cove Door: Above the Bench is Wainscot Work two Yards and a Half high, finely carved, and set with imboss'd Work in Wainscot, and gilded under the carved Work. Above the Wainscot was a large Picture of our Saviour Christ, the blessed Virgin Mary, and S. John, in fine ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... spoke with pleasure, was the sole confidant of the little events of his life, for his seat was close to her counter. He played dominoes, the only game he was capable of understanding. When his partners did not happen to be present, he usually went to sleep with his back against the wainscot, holding a newspaper in his hand, the wooden file resting on the marble of his table. He was interested in the buildings going up in Paris, and spent his Sundays in walking about to examine them. He was often heard to say, "I saw the Louvre emerge from its rubbish; I saw the birth of ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the Parliament is usually held, the seats and wainscot are made of wood, the growth of Ireland; said to have that occult quality, that all poisonous animals are driven away by it; and it is affirmed for certain, that in Ireland there are neither serpents, toads, nor any other venomous creature to ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... of them a real sound fell upon her ear—very low, but different, not like the fragmentary inadvertent murmur of the hut; a small, purposeful, stealthy, sound, aware of itself. She listened, as she had listened before, without moving. It was not louder than the whittling of a mouse behind the wainscot, hardly louder than the scraping of a mole's thin hand in the soil. It continued. Then it stopped. It was only her foolish fancy after all. There it was again. Where ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... of my wainscot last night, and plunged me in horrible dilemma: for I am equally idiotic over the idea of the creature trapped or free, and I saw sleepless nights ahead of me till I had secured a change of ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... here allowed me, to read nightly an hour to me after supper, it fortuned that Fulcis, my then servant, reading in the Christian Resolution, in the treatise of Proof that there is a God, &c., there was upon a wainscot table at that instant three loud knocks {513} (as if it had been with an iron hammer) given; to the great amazing of me and my two servants, Fulcis ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... such a fallacious expedient. Yet she sleeps in the same chamber with me; and ought I not to beware of inspiring perfidy with projects? 'Tis true my slumbers are broken, my nights restless, and the cracking of the wainscot is as effectual in waking me as a thunder-clap could be. I am resolved, however, to take the key out of the door, and either hide it or hold it all night in my hand. Mischief is meant me, or ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... wetting and slopping, the dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the idea of its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with vestments: "Don't be afraid, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... and piteously implored Marie not to suffer him to come. Marie soothed her, and hoped that Jean's compassion might be as strong as her own. Had she not been taken up with Perine, she would have more quickly caught the impatient scratching like a mouse in the wainscot, with which he ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... was on one of these cross-beams, after it had fallen down from the burning roof, that Kari got on to the side wall and leapt out, while Skarphedinn, when the burnt beam snapped asunder under his weight, was unable to follow him. There were fittings of wainscot along the walls of the side aisles, and all round between the pillars of the inner row, supporting the roof of the nave, ran a wainscot panel. In places the wainscot was pierced by doors opening into sleeping places shut off from the rest of the hall ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... however deficient in other requisites of their art, seem to have an unfortunate knack at preserving likenesses. Heads powdered even whiter than the originals, laced waistcoats, enormous lappets, and countenances all ingeniously disposed so as to smile at each other, encumber the wainscot, and distress the unlucky visitor, who is obliged to bear testimony to the resemblance. When one sees whole rooms filled with these figures, one cannot help reflecting on the goodness of Providence, which thus distributes self-love, in proportion ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... panel in the wainscot slid back and the bald head of a friar peered into the room. "Son Adam," said the holy man, "I crave your company an instant, oro vestrem aurem;" and with this abominable piece of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the smaller half-dome. Architecturally, this is an interesting interior; but the traveller who has not time to spend in musings will fail to see it in its original intention;—cold, severely plain, heavy, with perhaps too many arch-lines, but sober and simple. A futile wooden wainscot now surrounds the church and breaks its wall space, liberal coats of whitewash conceal the building material, and taking from the church the severity of its stone, give it an ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... joined her sister, she found her standing by the deep recessed window, the curtains of which were drawn back, resting her head on her hand against the wainscot, and gazing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... hard, but he could not go back and leave the door unclosed. With a suppressed sob of agony he thrust out his head and arm. In a moment it was over, but the moral effort had been terrible, and his strength failed him, so that he staggered against the wainscot and would have fallen but for ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... but he has come, By Charon kindly ferried, To tell me of a mighty sum Behind my wainscot buried? There is a buccaneerish air About that garb outlandish— 70 Just then the ghost drew up his chair And said, 'My name ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... — N. base, basement; plinth, dado, wainscot; baseboard, mopboard^; bedrock, hardpan [U.S.]; foundation &c (support) 215; substructure, substratum, ground, earth, pavement, floor, paving, flag, carped, ground floor, deck; footing, ground work, basis; hold, bilge. bottom, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is one of the most interesting. It ought to be read in conjunction with an earlier item in the same will, in which special directions are left to the executors not to pull down or to deface any manner of wainscot or glass in or about the house of Slyfield. For the end of the Slyfield family as a power in Surrey came with bitter suddenness. Henry, the Sheriff's eldest son, succeeded his father in 1590, and died in 1598. He was succeeded by his son ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker |
